Entertainment came cheap in the neighborhood. If there wasn’t a couple of wild Puerto Ricans climbing the outside window ledges to see who could reach the fourteenth floor first, somebody was throwing a mannequin from the rooftop and then yelling down into the crowd.
These were dysfunctional, idle-handed pastimes that people found positive. But my favorite entertainment was playing by the living room window with my Star Trek and Evel Knievel action figures or watching the show Baretta.
Mom didn’t like Joey and me playing outside much because she was constantly worried about what could happen.
It wasn’t long before the circus act would bellow a horrid sound outside the living room window. I hurried over, gaping down into the street where a crowd of people gathered and the Hell’s Angels kept their motorcycles.
I spotted a heavy black lady who must’ve weighed at least three hundred pounds dancing half-naked through the crowd of heckling passersby in the middle of the street. She was singing and flailing her big flabby arms as if she were in the privacy of her own home.
A couple of guys sitting on the neighborhood bench were shouting profanity at her, laughing and taunting to see more. I waited for the police to show and take her away, but it seemed like an eternity.
Then I heard a deafening sound of sirens echo through the Lower Manhattan streets, screeching to a complete stop as cops rushed out of their cars in disbelief, quickly making their way through the barrage of people and grabbing the lady’s flabby arms.
Our corpulent lady dancer then screamed, “Ah! Let me go! Rape! Rape! Somebody, help me! I’m a virgin! Please don’t take me away!”
One cop exclaimed, “Lady, shut up! No one’s gonna rape you.”
“Please don’t take my virginity away,” she pleaded.
The cop had a disgusted look on his face and became impatient, forcefully saying, “Lady, I’m just going to cuff you, then take you in.” Then to the other officers, “Damn, I can’t cuff her from behind! Her arms are too big.”
“Just put her in the car,” another cop suggested.
They forced her in, but she kept pulling herself back out by grabbing the doorjamb.
The lady yelled, “Don’t you put me in this hot box!” She screamed, “Diana! Diana! Diana!” referring to the singer Diana Ross.
“You crazy bitch!” the cop yelled, pulling his billy club out and pushing it into her rolls of fat to force her back into the police car.
“Police brutality!” the lady shouted. “Police brutality! Police brutality!”
People watched from their windows as the lady made a run for it. At least six cops tackled her. Kids in the area were laughing and rolling on the ground in tears. That’s when a police van pulled beside the fat lady.
“I’ll count to three,” the cop said. “Then we’re gonna have to inch her in.”
The fat lady yelled, “Ain’t there no justice? You hurtin’ me! Ah! You piece o’ white bread honky!”
“Lady, shut up! We haven’t even moved you yet,” the cop said. “Here we go, guys. On three. One, two, three. Li-ift!” They heaved, but progress was slow. “Hurry! Put her in the van!” he insisted with a strained look on his face.
“Why don’t you make her get up and walk?” a bystander shouted with a sickened look.
The cops successfully shoved her into the police van, and the crowd cheered and clapped. The show was soon over, and as they drove away, the fat lady kept yelling and banging on the windows. I knew that in a few weeks, however, she would be back in the streets singing another tune by her favorite artist, Diana Ross.
To get away from this craziness, our family would gather around the sofa, a badly torn, overused centerpiece that brought us together near an antique Yamaha piano.
I couldn’t think of a better way to marry a family but with music. We would embrace my sister’s voice singing while my brother Gerard played my favorite song, “Let It Be” by the Beatles. Joey and I would be playing Connect Four or Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots nearby.
Gerard’s ability to play music brought a joy to the family that lifted us away from the daily grind, but these moments were cut short when he left. At first I thought he was going on a Christian tour to play music, but a few days turned into weeks, and then months.
My sister, Anna, left to meet up with him, and I still didn’t know why he left or when he’d come back. The idea of not seeing my siblings come back home didn’t occur to me at first—we were family, and we were supposed to be together.
We often stood around the dining table draped with a flowery, heavy plastic cover, eating fried Spam, Spanish rice, and black beans. If it was live theater we wanted, then Michael could slip a sock over his hand and turn the evening into a Muppets show.
In some way, we all possessed a special talent. We even tap danced randomly in the middle of the living room to the Dean Martin records Mom enjoyed.
My mother was the glue that held the family together and showed us the importance of love, always making certain that our stomachs were full, even if it meant she didn’t eat.
Despite her love, she was a temperamental woman, not to be messed with. Her authoritative, Catholic background and strong will commanded the respect that she so deserved.
Of course, like any brother with siblings, I had a favorite: Michael. I would mimic the way he’d lifted weights, grunting to the scratchy soundtrack of West Side Story, or running men’s Brylcreem through my hair to recreate Michael’s famous curl over my forehead.
Michael showed me how to be strong and unafraid. He told me not to walk away from a fight because if I did, I could find a knife plunged into the back of my spine. He wasn’t part of any gang, nor was he a follower, yet he was respected as someone who believed in honor and who would confront the neighborhood trash with a baseball bat if they harmed anyone in our family.
I believe Michael’s power came mostly from my father, a man who had many stories about the Korean War. Dad was also the hardest on Michael. Regardless of how difficult and sad my dad’s life might’ve been, however, unlike other fathers in the neighborhood, my father never abandoned us.
***
I hated nothing more than being so scared of a bully that death became an option. Alberto was the evil I tried hard to avoid, but he looked like Godzilla with his rough face, short Brillo hair, and pitch-black damaged skin. He brought fear wherever he went.
I would always be alert and ready for a fight with anyone else, but with Alberto, I would try to get to class before he could see me. I’ve never seen a kid as mean and vicious as this one. His chin was tucked into his broad, muscular shoulders, and his gruesome face was a sight that not even a mother would admit to loving. Most kids at that school felt the same fear of Alberto as I did.
My efforts to conceal myself from him were to no avail when he saw me walking to class one day, though. He rushed toward me, raised his right hand, and pushed me backward by my face. The back of my head slammed against the school wall as all the other kids watched in terror.
My books fell to the ground, and another kid kicked them down the hallway. I looked around, but there was no teacher I could call for help. Afterward, I was too embarrassed to go to class, so I rushed out of the school and ran to my Uncle Carlito’s house on Essex Street.
When I got there, I hurried into the elevator, anxiously pressing the button to the fourteenth floor. “Carlito! Carlito!” I cried out, banging on his front door.
“What is it, Eddie? Whatta you doing outta school?”
“Alberto pushed me in the face!”
“Alberto? Who the hell is Alberto? Whatta you mean he pushed you in the face? Where is this kid?”
I replied, breathing with difficulty, “I was heading to class, and he just pushed my face against the wall!”
Carlito threw his leather jacket on, snatched a razor blade from the bathroom cabinet, and grabbed my hand. “C’mon. Let’s go! I’m gonna go skin me a bully.” Then he briskly walked me back to school.
When we arrived, Carlito walked in that school like he owned the building and everything in it. Carlito looked down at me and asked, “Where’s Alberto’s class?”
“This way,” I anxiously said, guiding him down the hallway, targeting my finger at the classroom door.
Without hesitation, Carlito kicked it open and exclaimed, “Where the fuck is Alberto?” Then he carefully removed the sharp razor blade from the inside of his jacket and looked intently at every kid in the classroom.
The teacher, with a crack in her voice, politely said, “S-sir, you’re going to have to leave.”
He ignored her and focused his attention on the older kids. I could see Alberto’s face swollen with fear and his body paralyzed at the back of the classroom, knowing there was little hope for his future.
I cringed but said, “There he is.”
Alberto’s eyes grew wide as Carlito approached him. Now he felt like I felt when he bullied me. As the other kids watched my uncle’s massive frame slowly move past them, he kicked aside a chair and walked over to Alberto.
Carlito rested a heavy palm over Alberto’s desk, bent over, gazed straight into Alberto’s fearful eyes, and angrily said, “If you ever fuck with my nephew again, I’ll kill you,” holding the blade close to his rough face. “The next time, you die.”
The teacher didn’t say another word while this happened. Alberto, with his mouth partially open and his eyes wide, could barely nod.
Carlito walked back to me and said, “Let’s go.”
I grabbed his hand as we walked down the hall.
“Where’s your classroom?”
“That way,” I replied, pointing into the far distant hallway.
He walked me to the door, squatted to my level, and said, “Listen, if this Alberto kid messes with you again, you let me know. But I doubt he will.”
Carlito was right. After that day, Alberto didn’t even look at me in the school hallways—he had a new respect for my presence. When rumor got around about how he got scared straight, other kids started telling Alberto that if he bullied them, Carlito would find out.
***
The best times I recall were with my crazy friends Louie and Nanny. They lived beneath me and had the same street view, where we could clearly see the big black lady dance or the older kids hopping a ride on the back bumper of the city bus.
Louie was a skinny, toothless kid who had black, curly hair, a narrow face, and who laughed like a hyena. He was extremely entertaining. A total nutcase, some might say, who would do the craziest stunts.
His favorite was to pee out his fourth-floor window over the bushes below. As I watched him do this, I could see Nanny riding his banana seat bicycle and cheering Louie on. Louie would then look up at me laughing and waiting for an expression of approval.
He would even throw his toys out the window just to see them fall. Nanny was a pudgy, giggly kid who lived on the second floor and would often stop by our apartment for a free meal. He looked as if he came straight out of the funny papers.
My best friend, however, was named Carlton. He was undoubtedly the biggest eleven-year-old black kid I knew. He could eat almost a whole Big Mac in two bites, drink a milkshake like taking a shot of tequila, eat a side of extra-salted fries, and when he was all done, ask for seconds.
Carlton was out of his element in the ghetto because he was kindhearted and giving, and he never used his size over anyone.
When we were bored, Louie, Nanny, and I would go spy on the flirtatious, husky Spanish lady on the fourth floor. Everyone said she was schizophrenic, but I didn’t believe it.
We’d often spy on her through her keyhole, imagining she enjoyed the idea of us watching, spread out on her sofa with her top off. We racked up enough images for any kid to soak in for those late-night pastimes.
Louie had a talent for staying out of trouble, or maybe I should say he could talk his way out of a fight—defending himself wasn’t his strong suit. Sometimes he would simply scream like a girl and run away.
Our dysfunctional friendship kept the three of us together. Nothing could hold us back from being who we were because doing risky pranks was considered a normal part of our lives on the Lower East Side.
One day we decided to pay a visit to our Spanish friend. I glanced over and whispered, “Hey, Louie, Nanny—look! Her door is cracked open.”
“Let’s go check it out,” Nanny suggested. We sneakily inched our way toward her front door.
I peeped through the keyhole and quietly said, “Damn! Look at those.”
“Let me see!” Nanny whispered. “I wanna see.”
She was slouched on a torn-up leather chair, watching television without even a bra. Louie chuckled and whispered, “Breasts,” drawing the word out. “Push the door open, Eddie.”
I was too scared. “You open it.” I stepped away from the door.
“I’ll do it,” Nanny volunteered, giggling the whole time.
“Okay, do it!” Louie demanded.
Nanny hit the door open. We backed up, and the lady, with a shocked look on her face, covered her breasts and gave chase through the hallway after us. We laughed so hard we could barely breathe.
She ran after us as I swiftly pushed open the steel door to the fifth floor.
Then Nanny jumped on her back and started to squeeze her breasts. I couldn’t believe what he was doing as she yelled, “Pig! Puerco! Estúpido! No me toques! No me toques!” She spat and tried to get him off.
Nanny shouted, “Eddie! Run!”
As the lady struggled up the stairwell, I said, “Nanny! Get off her!”
“I can’t,” he stressed. “She’s pulling my hair.”
Finally Nanny let go and ran back down the stairs. With a piece of Nanny’s hair in her hand, the Spanish lady chased after him. We followed behind as she frantically yelled, “Puerco! Puerco!”
Louie and I ran back up the stairs to the fifth floor, rolling on the dirty hallway floor laughing.
“Man, did you see her face?” Louie asked, still laughing.
“Yeah, I can’t believe what Nanny did.”
I looked outside the hallway window to see if I could find him. Then we heard a door bang shut from the other side of the hallway. We headed over to find Nanny.
“Nanny? Where’d you go?” I asked. “How’d you get away?”
“Did you see me? Did you see what I did?”
“Yeah, I can’t believe it,” Louie said. “You’re lucky she didn’t get you.”
I looked over to Louie and asked, “You think she’ll tell my mom and dad?”
We went quiet for a moment before Nanny said, “Nah, she won’t say nothin’.”
“Man, if your dad finds out, he’s gonna hit you hard,” Louie simpered.
“Shut up, Louie!” I exclaimed. “Your dad’s gonna beat you too.”
“He’s not gonna beat me like your dad does.”
“You better take it back,” I said, stepping toward him.
“Come on, guys, she won’t say anything,” Nanny said. “She’s crazy.
Everyone knows that. We can just say it never happened.”
Louie looked over to Nanny and asked the one question that every eleven-year-old, perverted boy would die to know: “Hey, Nanny? How did it feel to touch them?”
Nanny stood up straight like a proud father holding his newborn and smugly replied, “Like a big Twinkie.”
What better way to describe such a celebrated moment between friends? Louie and I could have only imagined it, but Nanny lived it for all the boys who dreamed of this moment.
Jamie was a healthy, active 12-year old who loved to skate and played hockey as well as any boy. Then one afternoon during a game, she suffered a stroke that changed her world. Her memoir takes the reader through her ordeal and her journey out of the
